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In Bid to Sway Sales, Cameras Track Shoppers

Envirosell workers watch customers browsing in stores, noting what they look at and if they buy.Credit
Brian Harkin for The New York Times

The curvy mannequin piqued the interest of a couple of lanky teenage boys. Little did they know that as they groped its tight maroon shirt in the clothing store that day, video cameras were rolling.

At a mall, a father emerged from a store dragging his unruly young son by the scruff of the neck, as if he were the family cat. The man had no idea his parenting skills were being immortalized.

At an office supply store, a mother decided to get an item from a high shelf by balancing her small child on her shoulders, unaware that she, too, was being recorded.

These scenes may seem like random shopping bloopers, but they are meaningful to stores that are striving to engineer a better experience for the consumer, and ultimately, higher sales for themselves. Such clips, retailers say, can help them find solutions to problems in their stores — by installing seating and activity areas to mollify children, for instance, or by lowering shelves so merchandise is within easy reach.

Many stores and the consultants they hire are using the gear not to catch shoplifters but to analyze and to manipulate consumer behavior. And while taping shoppers is legal, critics say it is unethical to observe people as if they were lab rats. They are concerned that the practices will lead to an even greater invasion of privacy, particularly facial recognition technology, which is already in the early stages of deployment.

Companies that employ this technology say it is used strictly to determine characteristics like age and gender, which help them discover how different people respond to various products. But privacy advocates fear that as the technology becomes more sophisticated, it will eventually cross the line and be used to identify individual consumers and gather more detailed information on them.

“I think it is absolutely inevitable that this stuff is going to be linked to individuals,” said Katherine Albrecht, founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, an advocacy group.

Some degree of privacy, experts say, is necessary as a matter of decency.

“When someone’s watching me, I’m going to act differently than when I think I’m alone,” Ms. Albrecht said. “Did I pick my nose? What was I doing? What did they see?”

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Retailers say watching customers helps them improve stores, but privacy advocates are troubled.Credit
Brian Harkin for The New York Times

Some stores use existing security systems for such monitoring and others have installed entirely new systems.

The most basic surveillance setup has been around for a few years. It uses video cameras in ceilings and sensors near fitting rooms to learn how many customers pass through the doors and where they tend to go.

At the other extreme, some retailers are taping shoppers’ every movement and using specialized analysis to study the shoppers’ behavior. For example, after seeing scores of customers struggle to navigate a particular area, analysts might suggest that the retailer widen the aisle.

The companies that install and analyze video for retailers say that they are sensitive to privacy issues but that the concerns are overblown. They say they are not using the technology to identify consumers but to give them easier and more enjoyable shopping experiences. And, they added, they have the sales results to prove it.

For example, Cisco Systems, the supplier of networking equipment, said one of its clients, the outdoor recreation retailer Cabela’s, installed cameras to monitor how long sales clerks took to approach customers.

“Far fewer customers were being approached within their guidelines than they thought,” said Joanne Bethlahmy, a director at Cisco’s Internet business solutions group. Cabela’s took steps to change that, and performance improved. The chain said it was testing video analysis and plans to go ahead with it.

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Some of Cisco’s clients are also experimenting with facial recognition technology. Cisco executives noted, however, that the technology was used only to look for general characteristics. “It’s not looking at individuals,” Ms. Bethlahmy said. “It registers as ‘old versus young.’ ”

Knowing that can help a retailer determine if a display is more appealing to men or to women, to baby boomers or members of Generation X.

Because of sensitivities surrounding privacy, some retailers are reluctant to discuss surveillance technology. And exactly how many cameras are tracking shoppers is not known, partly because cameras are installed and uninstalled during various studies. (The videotape is for internal use only.)

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Paco Underhill is the founder of Envirosell, a trailblazer in observational research.Credit
Brian Harkin for The New York Times

But industry professionals said interest in analyzing shoppers was growing. Video analysis companies said nearly every major chain was or had been a client, including giants like Wal-Mart Stores and Best Buy.

“In 1997, we were the only people doing this, and it was a somewhat risky business,” said Paco Underhill, a pioneer in the field of observational customer research and the founder of Envirosell, a research company that is considered the industry trailblazer. “In 2010, the concept of observational research is offered by hundreds of companies across the world.”

Many think they have just begun to tap its potential.

“This is truly the next big area to explode in terms of improving retail operations,” Ms. Bethlahmy said.

Bill Martin, a co-founder of ShopperTrak, which uses video sensors to help retailers count customers, said chains were asking about the technology to become more competitive in an economic slump. So far, more than 50,000 ShopperTrak sensors are in stores around the world.

Envirosell says this year is the busiest in its history.

The company uses video cameras as well as in-store researchers, or “trackers” in Envirosell parlance, to discreetly observe shoppers. They also interview customers.

At Mr. Underhill’s New York office, young acolytes — his 1999 book “Why We Buy” is read by marketing students the world over — watch hours of video. Information collected by the trackers and the cameras enables the team to draw conclusions about things retailers and manufacturers want to know, like which merchandise areas are least popular. To explain the process, Mr. Underhill showed a reporter surveillance videos of teenagers touching the buxom mannequin.

“We call this being busted,” he said dryly.

Such video has inspired malls to create inviting seating areas on the theory that if men stay out of trouble, women shop longer.

Privacy advocates know that stores are not public property, but they would still prefer to see ground rules like telling shoppers they are under a microscope.

But it may already be too late.

As Mr. Underhill pointed out, people are taped dozens of times each day doing routine chores like pumping gas. Cameras, it seems, are pervasive. Stores are merely the latest frontier.

“We live our lives surrounded by them,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on March 20, 2010, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Bid to Sway Sales, Cameras Track Shoppers. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe